Word: breaks
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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That is one reason why brainwashing became a subject of morbid fascination in the 1950s, popularly expressed in the movie The Manchurian Candidate. The Communists seemed to have the capacity to break anyone-Cardinal Mindszenty, for instance, or the U.S. journalist William Oatis, who in 1951 confessed to a charge of espionage in Czechoslovakia and spent more than two years in jail. The Korean War confirmed the worst U.S. expectations. The Chinese not only broke down many P.O.W.s, causing them to collaborate; they also persuaded 21 P.O.W.s to settle in China...
...Social Scientist Albert Biderman, for example, thinks that the typical serviceman's lack of ideology may be his strongest defense. The P.O.W. who "plays it cool," who makes superficial compromises without giving too much away, is sometimes the toughest to crack. Often those who resist most strenuously ultimately break down most completely...
...cases where prisoners finally do break down and sign incriminating confessions, the rest of the military should perhaps follow the lead of the Air Force and discount the propaganda loss. Anyone, friend or enemy, who is persuaded by a forced confession doubtless had his mind already made up. Moreover, propaganda can backfire. The fact that it has been gained through the abuse of prisoners repels people. When the North Vietnamese put captured U.S. flyers on exhibit in Hanoi, foreign reaction was so adverse that the Vietnamese never restaged the spectacle...
Last week's three incidents brought the number of planes skyjacked in the first three weeks of 1969 to eight. At that rate, this year should easily break the alarming 1968 record of 28. There have been 46 skyjackings to Cuba since the first U.S. airliner was forced to land there in May 1961, and despite the enormous risks of midair piracy, the skyjackings have miraculously caused no fatalities or even a single injury. The routine-including the standard radio message-has become well-established...
...troubles lie mainly in G.E.'s newer technological fields. The firm had to pay high entrance costs to break into those areas, and profits are farther into the future than managers had expected. The difficulties focus on three areas...